Plea seeks review of top court’s verdict on SC/ST quota sub-classification

Tribune News Service

Advertisement

New Delhi, August 21

As the National Confederation of Dalit and Adivasi Organisations on Wednesday organised a nationwide protest against the Supreme Court’s ruling allowing the State to sub-classify SCs/STs to ensure greater reservations for some SC/ST groups over others in public employment and education, a petition has been filed in the SC, seeking review of the verdict.

Filed by advocate Jaishri Patil, the review petition pointed out that the Supreme Court’s interpretation of sub-classification of backward classes in the Indra Sawhney case (Mandal case of 1992) did not apply to SCs and STs and the term “backward class”, as used in Article 16(4) of the Constitution, was intended to be distinct from SCs, which were separately defined under Articles 341 and 342.

Patil submitted that “even if the phrase, ‘backward classes’ in Article 16(4) is construed to be including SCs and STs, it will not allow the State to apply the test of backwardness on SC/STs as they are already defined on the relevant criteria of identification and except untouchability, backwardness of any kind was never a test of their identification. Therefore, to further classify them on the criteria other that historic criteria of untouchability will not be permissible.”

The review petition also raised questions over the top court’s views on exclusion of creamy layer from SC/ST reservations, saying it was contrary to the Mandal verdict.

Holding that SCs and STs are not homogenous groups, the Supreme Court had on August 1 ruled that the State can sub-classify them to ensure greater reservations for some SC/ST groups over others in public employment and admission to government-run educational institutions.

Currently, creamy layer criteria are applicable only to OBCs in order to exclude the better-offs among them from quota benefits, in terms of the 1992 nine-judge Constitution Bench verdict of the SC in the Indira Sawhney case.

The majority overruled the top court’s five-judge Bench verdict in EV Chinnaiah vs State of Andhra Pradesh (2004), which had ruled that SC/ST communities which suffered ostracisation, discrimination and humiliation for centuries formed homogeneous groups, incapable of being sub-categorised.

The verdict had come on a batch of petitions on the contentious issue, including one filed by the Punjab Government challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s 2010 verdict declaring unconstitutional the Punjab Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes (Reservation in Services) Act, 2006, which provided for 50 percent reservation with the first preference to ‘Valmikis’ and ‘Mazhabi Sikhs’.